It is well established that over-consumption of fats and oils leads to a variety of human health problems, including obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and cancer. For example, the prevalence of obesity in the United States has increased by over 30% during the past decade. These diseases cause a major deterioration in the quality of life of the individuals involved, as well as putting a large economic burden on society as a whole. Consequently, there has been a major drive to educate people about the health risks associated with over-consumption of fats and oils, with the aim of reducing the proportion of calories obtained from fat. The food industry has responded to this major health problem by developing and promoting reduced fat, low-fat or fat-free versions of many fatty food products. The manufacture of fat-reduced products is now a major sector of the food industry.
Nevertheless, many consumers do not incorporate fat-reduced products into their diets because of the undesirable quality attributes often associated with this kind of product. A wide variety of different technologies have previously been developed: including fat substitutes (e.g., Olestra™), low-calorie fats (e.g., Salatrim™, Caprenin™), fat mimetics (e.g., maltodextrin, biopolymers, Simplesse™) and fat extenders. Each of these technologies has its own advantages and disadvantages, and an effective fat replacement strategy usually involves combining a number of fat replacers with different functional properties to achieve a final product with desirable quality attributes.
There is therefore an urgent need to develop fat-reduced products that have quality attributes that are more desirable to consumers. Not only there is a need for incorporation of edible oils into reduced fat and/or reduced calorie food products that retain the taste, texture, appearance and shelf-life in the food product—the oils must be provided in a manner capable of withstanding the environmental conditions that inherently promote instability of oil-in-water emulsions, such as elevated temperatures, freeze-thaw cycling, high mineral contents and mechanical agitation.
Further, over consumption of lipids is also a major problem for many domesticated animals, such as cats and dogs, so there is a drive to identify technologies that can also be used for pet foods.